Financial Information

Are you an international traveler? Hate how all your credit cards and ATM withdrawals seem to have endless amounts of fees tacked on? Well, after extensive research, I have found the best of the best for travel finance. If you plan on traveling extensively or living abroad, it pays to check out these guys. They will save you a mountain of travel cash once you are no longer being nickel and dimed by international fees.

USAA is designed for military from the United States, and as such has a very international focus. Their checking accounts cover 10 ATM withdrawal fees from other banks each month, and they have no international use fees tacked on. This is the bank that I use now, and while living in Buenos Aires for the last year I have not incurred a single fee from using my bank card. The card works everywhere, and so long as you let USAA know where you will traveling and using the card, you will not encounter problems. USAA is usually reserved for military members and their families, but there are loopholes that can be exploited to get the account. Search online and you are bound to find them!

The Capital One No-Hassle Travel Rewards Card is the perfect credit card for travelers. There are no foreign transaction fees, which for other cards are generally 1-2% of each purchase made outside the United States. The card also gives 1.25 airline reward miles (usable on any airline) for every dollar spent with. This does not include the online partners Capital One has, where you can earn even more miles by shopping through the rewards website. Although you need a relatively high credit rating to be able to use this card, there is no better card for travelers!

credit cards

I may not have a lot of money at the moment, but as a young guy with excellent credit and just starting out, the environment has never been better for buying a new home! The housing bubble has popped, and now that the markets have come down out of the stratosphere normal folk like myself can actually consider buying property young. The government, in trying to stimulate the wrecked housing market, is also offering all sorts of incentives for first-time homebuyers.

I have seen a lot of “victims” of the bad economy show up on television, and some of them are definitely hurting, but a lot of them fell victim to their own shortsightedness. I see a volunteer firefighter earning no more than $2000 US a month, with 3 children, defaulting on a 5000 square foot house and I cannot help but think he had that coming. On what planet, even with the wild west of mortgages we had going for a while, would someone earning 24,000 US a year think they could afford that kind of house?

Another option for new buyers is the foreclosure market, which my friend just recently bought a condo from. He got a condo that initially sold for $350,000 US for just under $120,000 at the foreclosure auction. Minus some inexpensive work he will have to do for the interior (it was owned by a young family) to turn it into a bachelor pad, he now has a 3-story home for a fraction of what he would have had to pay not 2 years ago! This market is perfect for young professionals that want to get into property but were previously locked out because of artificial price hikes, so I count this crisis as a blessing!

Housing